Case studies on Open Science in the context of ERC projects - Set 1

This document presents the first of five sets of case studies that have been produced in the framework of the ‘Study on open access to publications and research data management and sharing within ERC projects’. This study has been procured by the ERC Executive Agency under contract number ERCEA/A1/2016/06. 

The following three case studies are included in this set:

• The Epistemology of data-intensive science (DATA SCIENCE)

In the Data Science project, Professor Sabina Leonelli and her team at the University of Exeter are showing how social science and humanities researchers can embrace open science, while respecting their ethical and confidentiality commitments to research subjects and participants. Key ingredients include creative and positive thinking about what can be shared, negotiating participants’ consent to share, documenting the interpretive process so others may follow it, and forward planning of the time to prepare interview materials for sharing.  Openness is not just its own reward; it brings new opportunities to influence policy networks, as Professor Leonelli demonstrates.

• WORDS FOR ART : The rise of a terminology in Europe (1600-1750) (LEXART)

Leading the LexArt project, Professor Michèle-Caroline Heck from the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier had to find viable solutions for the development of a highly complex database and for high open access publishing costs for books that had not been included in the initial budget. The issues related to the database were solved by partnering with the Trier Center for Digital Humanities, who had the necessary expertise, and collaborating with them in a virtual research environment. The LexArt team also succeeded in making all their books open access and staying within the budget by choosing the Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, a university press, instead of other commercial publishers.

• The Metallurgical Nutcracker: Probing at the Nanoscale the Structure and Properties of Hard Second Phases in Alloys and Composites (PHASENANOCRACKER)

Professor Andreas Mortensen from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) led the PhaseNanoCracker project that was conducted in the fields of material chemistry and metallurgy. Although this is not a widespread practice in these fields of science, all the articles coming out of the project were published in open access. Professor Mortensen and his team believe that it is important to make research results accessible and available for everyone, even though it is not encouraged by the current scientific publishing enterprise.